


Mirrors

by notjustmom



Series: Elementary [3]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pilot Episode
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-04 22:17:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14602905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom
Summary: Playing with the lack of mirrors in the show, at least in their physical form.





	1. Chapter 1

The brownstone seemed larger on the inside, much like the Tardis, Joan mused. She wasn't much of a sci-fi fan, she'd rather watch the Mets play, even though they had been terrible most of her life, they had always been her team - listening to the games on the radio had been her escape, and once she could afford season tickets, it was one of her first frivolous purchases when she had finally become a surgeon. So many years of working non-stop, not much of a life, but she had been driven by something she couldn't define to become someone who could save lives. She had succeeded until she had taken one, yes, it had been unintentional, a slip, to this day, she still didn't understand how it had happened, but it had and now, she was attempting to save lives in a different way. She had only known her newest client for a few hours, but the rooms felt cavernous without his presence. She sighed as she turned on the light and flipped through the piles of photographs and notes from the case they - no, Sherlock was working on. She was merely his companion, she was not a detective, and yet....

Sherlock looked around the nearly empty courtroom. No Watson. Barrister was rubbish, but heartfelt promises of good behaviour were made following a rather bored, and boring judge delivered a rather boring homily, regarding endangering the public at large, and he was duly released. He was sure a fine would be paid by someone in his father's employ within the hour, and he gave a brief thought to how swift 'justice' could be at times. 

Justice. He turned the word over in his mind as he walked out into the morning light and watched as Watson made her way over to him. She had slept little, or not at all - that was why she had missed his hearing, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that hadn't been there yesterday. She had made a discovery about his - no, it was now their case. It was going to be something he should have seen, or perhaps he hadn't had all the necessary data, but she wasn't sure what it meant. One day, he knew she would get to a point where she could make the leap on her own, but today, she needed him to connect the dots for her. He wondered what it meant that he didn't mind her indulging her curiosity, encroaching on his first case since his escape from rehab - until Watson appeared in his life, he had never given any thought to instructing another regarding his method, but when she presented him with the suspect's medical file and the photograph that puzzled her, he couldn't quite master his features into his usual unaffected neutrality. To his surprise, he was pleased, as if she were already his protege, and she had passed her first test. He felt something ease in his chest, and he understood they had both been transformed into something new, they were bound together in some way that he had never known before. Not even with her -

 

"Weird, right?" She looked up at him and he met her question with certainty.

"No, not even a little."

 

Their first case was essentially all but wrapped up, they would have to present Gregson with the evidence and make their case, but the man was no fool, he would arrive at the same conclusion and the case would be closed, perhaps justice would be served in some fashion perhaps not, but justice wasn't the driving force, it wasn't why he did the work. If he considered the question honestly, he knew the answer lay mostly in selfish motives. He needed the puzzles to keep the machinery of his mind in top condition, and now he had to do the work sober. He hadn't been sure he could still do it on his own without the assistance of the substances he had relied on after London. London. Why did she have to prod him about London? And how did she know that a woman was at the very center of everything, for once he had an idea of what other people must feel when he was able to take one look at them and know those things that most people preferred to keep hidden. It had taken less than a day for her to determine what had led him to near self-annihilation, and he knew she hadn't guessed, she had looked through the glass that had separated them last night, had seen it in his face, in his eyes, had heard it in his words that a woman was at the center of everything. He had felt revealed last night, stripped of the carefully constructed walls, built of trivia, data, knickknacks, anything that could stop the bleeding after Irene's death. He was unsure how long he could manage, to be recognised as just another human being, who had nearly been destroyed by love, no, that wasn't quite right. His world had imploded from the loss of his first and only love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a bit... playing with time again as I do...

"I notice you don't have any mirrors here," Watson commented quietly, but he heard the slight rebuke of injury in her voice, and he knew he had overstepped.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" 

"I think you know a lost cause when you see one." She turned and walked towards the stairs before he could say another word.

 

He slowly turned around the room, as if to verify the veracity of her statement, though he already knew she was correct. He had grown up in a house full of mirrors, he couldn't ever escape images of himself. Most of them had been old, so his reflection always held flaws, so he knew from an early age there was something not quite right about himself and when he was summarily sent away to boarding school at age eight, he removed the one small mirror from his room, only to see those flaws reflected back to him in the eyes and smirks of his peers.

Damn it, Watson. 

 

"I want you to tell me about London."

"Big place lots of rain."

"No, I need to know what happened -"

"No you don't. You think if I tell you about London, it will create a sense of connection between us. You already know I don't have connections..." He tried to back away from her, but was caught by the knowing look in her eyes, the growing smile, he knew that smile - "Why are you smiling?"

"Now I know it was a woman."

"How - how do you know that?"

"Because you're trying too hard - like the tattooed woman the day we met - it's not that you can't make connections with people. You're just afraid."

Again. The truth of her words flashed in her eyes, and once more he was caught out, no matter how much he tried to keep her out, she kept coming at him, trying to pry him out of his safe places - the safe places that were slowly killing him bit by bit.

"My bail hearing is at nine, I expect I'll see you there."


End file.
